Kyle Kopta Digital Imaging

   Chapter 1, 'If This Is Art', was extremely eye opening for me in that it destroyed a preconceived notion that I held about the great photographs that inspire me: they are staged. More specifically, different photographers have employed strategies and careful planning to pull off powerful photos (most of which give the impression that the image was taken spontaneously). Considering this, the role of the photographer is not to simply to be somewhere at the right time, but rather as a director who is able to produce a narrative.    Being the culmination of a process of artistic vision and careful forethought that the audience typically does not see only adds to the depth and potential interpretation of these photographs. One such instance from this chapter that particularly stuck out to me was that of Zhang Huan, whose photograph To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond  is equal parts performance art, protest, and photograph. In a political climate in which ava...

   I overheard someone in the classroom say that the fair is an amazing place to take photos, and they were absolutely right. What surprised me the most was the variety of photo techniques that one could play with at the fair. The colorful lights at wider apertures were great for bokeh, and the colossal rides made for some great perspective shots.    For my aperture shot, I was on a search for something that was in a row. This way, at f 2.0 I could show off how the background slowly pulls out of focus. I was lucky enough to find a shot with two parallel lines and a few small lights in the background in order to highlight this effect.    When I was brainstorming shots to highlight ISO, I wanted to do an experiment to see how far I could push my ISO without producing an image that was insanely noisy. I made sure to shoot the image at night in a completely dark room with one light source (a cheap starry night projector for a children's room). I also made ...